It took me about 5 hours, from start to finish, but I am @ a tier 4 altar (no nether stars cause no wither skeletons yet), full set of bound armour minus the boots, cause TC4 boots are soooooooooo much better.
I dunno, it usually takes me about 4-5 hours to master any progression style mod. This has been no different.
My set up is an MFR spawner with zombies (might upgrade to witches later). I have to start up the system, let the zombies build, they fall into the altar with floor is graveyard soil. Such that eventually when enough zombies get into there, the ritual of suffering is ticking for something like 4k LP per pulse, which is great.
I designed it so that they fall into the 5x5 pit, located between the t2 and t3 altar lines, such that their heads are below my hand level. This makes it so that I can reach into my altar, place things, without them getting in the way. When I want to farm blood shards or boost up the LP, just slap all the hoarding zombies in the face.